CategoryBook

Target audience: everyone who is presenting in front of an audience
Urs’ comment: After “presentation zen” and “presentation zen design” which were mainly focused on the artifacts (slides), this book puts the most important part under closer inspection; the speaker. Garr Reynolds tells us how to connect with the audience, keep them engaged and how to make a lasting impression. For me, his best book so far.
ISBN-13: 978-0-321-70445-0

Target audience: Speakers Urs’ comment: Carmine Gallo (the author) is surely a big fan of Steve Jobs. Sometimes a bit too much for me. However, the book gives a very good overview of how to WOW your audience. The tips are especially useful when you have to present about products. Most of the samples are from Keynotes given by Steve Jobs (therefore the title). An easy read, funny and informative. However, if you have already read a bunch of books on presentation skills then nothing new...

Target audience: Speakers Urs’ comment: Once you have read this book, you know why you fell asleep in most presentations you attended. Provides lots of information about how to design visually engaging slides. The tips are easy to follow. A must read for presenters caring about their audience. Daniel’s comment: I really enjoyed reading this book, although it was for me sometimes a bit too ZENized. But the tips Garr Reynolds gives in this book really help you design visually...

Target audience: Speakers, Trainers, Teachers Urs’ comment: Wow! A book about how to speak in public with lots of useful tips and tricks that I never had read about before. This book is not only very informative but entertaining, too. It’s not about slides, it’s about how to get the attention of the audience, how to provoke a learning effect, how to master tricky situations and much more. If presentations are an important part of your (work) life then this book is for you...

Target audience: Everyone involved in UI development
Urs’ comment: A short book containing a lot of information about basic user interface usability that every user interface developer shoud know. A must read for everyone developing user interfaces.
ISBN: 978-0321344755
ISBN (german version): 978-3-8266-1595-5

Target audience: .NET developers Daniels’ comment: Actually it’s a while ago when I read this book. I mention it here because we are using it to educate developers which are new to C# 3.0 and the .NET 3.5 platform. The book is very well structured and gives a deep insight into the platform, language and the tools. It starts with the basic stuff (even object oriented approaches) and goes then deep into the darkest edges of the .NET platform. Only the chapters about WCF and WPF are a...

Target audience: .NET developers
Daniels’ comment: Actually it’s a while ago when I read this book. I mention it here because we were discussing today in our team what knowledge is necessary to really understand LINQ. That book really opened my eyes regarding the usage of LINQ and all its powers! The author really understands to give you a good overview what each operator offers and what pitfalls a developer could get into.
ISBN:  978-1-59059-789-7

Target audience: .NET developers, Database developers Daniels’ comment: The book should actually give an overview about LINQ and object relational mapping with Linq to SQL, Ado.NET Entity framework. The book was for me a bit disappointing. Although I knew that the book is really technology centric the book was for me not open enough for the real application challenges when communicating with databases. The patterns and code samples gave me the feeling that they were somehow hacked...

Target audience: Lead Developers, Architects Daniel’s comment: I heard a lot about the book from Martin Fowler and finally got time to read it. I must say I’m a bit disappointed by the content of the book. In my point of view it is too database centric and regarding the books age we have now better patterns or even frameworks which fit into modern applications needs. Nonetheless it’s good for getting ideas how problems were approached those days and therefore should be on...